The new head coach of British Bobsleigh, Lee Johnston, was formally disciplined and warned as to his future conduct after making derogatory remarks about black drivers in 2013

Johnston, a 12-time British champion who went to the Winter Olympics in 1998, 2002 and 2006 before becoming a coach, was accused of telling a member of the squad, Toby Olubi, “I knew you would be late because you are black” and, later in the same training session on 4 July, 2013: “Black drivers do not make good bobsleigh drivers”.

a number of people who have worked alongside Johnston have told the Guardian they do not believe that he is racist

Once you make the distinction between a person with a sexual orientation and a child abuser I think it’s hard not to feel sorry for people like this. The first half of that article basically articulates exactly what I mean perfectly. For every child abuser there must be lots of people sat at home living solitary lives and hating themselves because they can’t change what they feel and know it will never be right.

It used to be shameful for a man to have sex with a man or for a man to want to wear a dress and make up and have sex with women but society has finally grown up a bit and now it’s not. But I don’t think there will ever be a time (well I certainly hope there isn’t) when an adult having any kind of sexual activity with a child is an accepted thing by any modern society, so while the shame of the act will always be there, the shame of the feelings will always be there too so they’ll always be hidden away.

You’re basically expecting adults with a sexuality to live a completely celibate life. I mean that’s so far from the reality of my life that I really have no idea how it would feel. I’d guess the majority of us on here are heterosexual males, so if you imagine that sex with women was considered disgusting by all of society, it was always illegal, all pornography was illegal and there were no prostitutes. But nearly everyone else in the world isn’t attracted to women and are allowed to have a sex life and films and books are created focused on how great their sexuality is, just not for you because what you want is terrible. It sounds like some kind of dystopian world but I’m guessing that’s exactly what life feels like for people like this.

Maybe if it’s true that some of it is caused by trauma for whatever reason then that can be cured to a degree but I can’t imagine going to my doctor saying “help me I’m attracted to women” and then them being able to somehow completely take that away from me. You could probably suppress the feelings but while the level of shame is so high people won’t come forward and ask for help and they may be the ones that one day hit a breaking point and go searching the dark web for a bit of satisfaction or even worse.